FH Events Taking Off!

Things are starting to liven up, events-wise, for family & local historians. Here's what's coming in the next few days...

• Saturday 31st March - Rotherham Family History Fair;
• Saturday 31st March - Dorset FHS Open Day, Parkstone;
• Sunday 1st April - East Anglia Family History Fair, Norwich;
• Saturday 31st March - Stamford Book Fair;
• Sunday 1st April - Dartmoor Book Fair, Tavistock;
• Postcard Fairs at Digbeth (28th), Chichester (31st), and Porchester (31st) - see here. Advisable to contact organiser before travelling.
• The Society of Genealogists' schedule of talks, etc., for April can be found here - and there's an Open Day at the SoG on Saturday 31st March;
• The Irish Genealogy News blog has, over the course of the past few days, listed a number of forthcoming events of interest to Irish researchers. Click here, and scroll back through the last few blog entries (also, look out for an explosive post on IGN re. the new fee structure at Roots Ireland!);
• A reminder, too, about the forthcoming Titanic 2012: Commemortaing RMS Titanic at her birthplace programme of events at PRONI beginning on 2nd April - see here.
• Oh, and I see that the 'Events' page of the National Library of Scotland website was updated a few days ago.

Worcestershire researchers will be aware that things are a-changing in their part of the world as regards the county's records office service. The County Hall branch has already closed and the 'History Centre' branch will shut up shop on 21st April - with a new archive centre, 'The Hive', opening in July. Check out their website for full details and regular updates.

On the subject of changes to libraries/archives it is worth reminding you all that as April dawns many of our institutions will be bringing in new opening hours in line with recent cuts to services, etc. So if you can spare a few minutes, do check out the website of your local repository before you make your next visit - just in case!

Those of you who read Michael Sharpe's comments on this blog on Saturday (see here), will be interested to read Nick Barratt's short piece here on pretty much the same topic.

There's an article on TNA's blog re. UK naturalisation records (1870-1980) - see also here. And there's also the pending release of colonial administration records.

Finally for today, a quick visit to John D Reid's 'Anglo-Celtic Connections' blog brings us (among other things):

• A follow-up piece to an item first mentioned on the BI-Gen blog last week;
• FreeBMD update;
• Survey results here & here.

Having picked this one up from a book, I do wonder if the gravestone epitaph does actually exist 

(from somewhere in Ireland, apparently)...

Here lies the body of John Mound;

Lost at sea and never found.